Newsletter—August 2017
Search for meaning
We had the experience but missed the meaning T.S. Eliot ‘The Dry Salvages‘ (1941)
Our status as PC(USA) mission co-workers ends next month; we retire from service September 2017. We are now at a time of reflection of our mission experience. We are looking for meaning in the mundane work. Peter Berger, a famous sociologist and theologian, died recently*. Among his widely read books is A Rumor of Angels: Modern society and the recovery of the supernatural. He argued that faith can indeed flourish in modern society if people learn to recognize the transcendent and supernatural in ordinary experiences. Berger asserted that people can enrich their religious sensibilities by finding “signals of transcendence” in common experiences. He has sent us off looking for ‘signals of transcendence’ over the past 16 years of mission service. We can recount our experiences; now it is time to search for the meaning of these activities, events and encounters. The missiologist Anthony Gittins helps us focus on “the meaning of mission”. Gittins writes, “’Contemplating movement and mission, encounters and experiences, we start with a disturbing line from T.S. Eliot. It has the power to linger in the mind, calling us to greater humility; it has the capacity to focus the attention whenever we embark on a new venture. Eliot ruefully recalls, ‘We had the experience but missed the meaning’” (Gittins, Ministry at the Margins). We cannot avoid seeking meaning, making meaning, and finding meaning for this significant portion of our lives.
Jesus helps his disciples find meaning. Jesus is asked by the disciples to explain the parables. The resurrection encounter on the road to Emmaus offers a lesson in how to find meaning, even in what the world considers to be total defeat: Jesus walks alongside the discouraged and fearful disciples, scurrying out of Jerusalem that Easter Sunday evening. “Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures” (Luke 24:24-27). Jesus reinterpreted the events of Holy Week not as defeat but as victory. Read as a mission text, the encounter o n the road to Emmaus offers an important lesson for mission workers above all to be bearers of hope. Perhaps the most important task is offering hope to the discouraged, the defeated and the powerless.
Three words guide us in our search for meaning in God’s mission: obedience, redemption, and repentance. Each has taken a special place in our search for meaning.
Obedience. Obedience is not a popular word today. It requires giving up what many of us cherish: control. We struggled to enter mission service Back in 1998 we were to be commissioned for mission service in Colombia. We were in the General Assembly program—but at the very last minute we said no. Our explanation at the time was,”we are not prepared”. Looking back now, the real reason is that we lacked faith—faith that God would be with us in this mission challenge. We felt chastised and disobedient. Like the rich young man, we counted the cost and concluded it was too much. We had our own plans which about what we wanted to do. Our faces fell. So we walked away. Thomas H Green, a Jesuit writer, says we need to learn to float where God takes us, and not to swim, seeking our own direction. Obedience to God’s will require giving up our desire for self-determination. The lessons of obedience continued. Others who wanted to come to LCC to serve often came with their own agendas—their plans were set before they arrived. They often expected a menu of choice activities, regardless of what was needed. Obedience requires giving up control. The potter shapes us (Jeremiah 18:1-6; Romans 9: 21). We are to learn and grow in obedience to Christ. In the words of the old hymn, “Trust and obey, for there is no other way.”
Redemption. Despite our mission failure in 1998, we continued to feel God’s call. Over three years we simplified our lives, sold our house and went back to school. In 2000, together with our eventual mission partner, we returned to World Mission in Louisville. We feared that our creditability was suspect when we said, “you have a file on us.” But to our surprise the door opened wide and within a matter of months I was in Lithuania starting mission service that would last 16 years. At the end of the appointment process, I was asked to share my feelings in one word. I answered, “Redeemed!” Working in a Lithuanian prison for 12 years, we learned more about redemption. Some questioned us about why we spent the time and money on prisoners. We learned that the best response was, “We believe in redemption, don’t we?” God’s love extends to all. It was our joy to greet prisoners after their release, “in freedom” they said. We imagine how joyful the prodigal was for his welcome back.
Repentance. In this age of polarized combative politics, the mantra is “’never apologize’, don’t give your opponents any opening to criticize or weaken you. “Public statements of regret are risky in a rigidly polarized world. Admissions of error both provide propaganda for ideological opponents and among fellow travelers” (The Economist June 10, 2017). Surely this is not the Christian way. Mission requires humility and repentance, admitting mistakes and missed opportunities to be a winsome witness. “Our lives are often marked by moments of keen regret for failures and oversights. Whatever else we may understand about Christian mission, it surely requires these two things: that our life experience be widened by future new encounters and that we discover more meaning in these experiences, past or yet to come” (Gittins). The essence of partnership is “shared grace and thanksgiving,” according to the PC(USA) Policy Statement on partnership in mission. “Partnership calls all partners to confess individual and collective failings.” Looking back we now see many missed opportunities at our level as individual mission workers in our encounters with students, prisoners, and fellow mission personal. Did we offer hope and show kindness as often as it was called for? And partnership involves the institutions, the PC(USA), LCC International University and the Evangelical Reformed Church of Lithuania. Much remains to be done to strengthen the work and witness of these partner institutions in order to realize the opportunities the collapse of the Soviet Union, now more than 25 years ago, has brought to light. The forecast from 1993 still rings true. The “new breeze of freedom” also brought the difficult task of building a new society in the midst of severe economic dislocation and growing ethnic conflicts “ There remains “a tremendous faith and hope which only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can provide”( 1993 GA, ‘Mission in the 1990s’). Much of the current leadership is new and has to face many competing priorities, with diminished resources. New ways of sharing resources are needed. Strategic directions need to be better aligned. May they see the way clear to focus on strengthening and renewing mission partnership we experienced.
This is not a time for glib expressions like “Thank you for your service.” It is not a time of reward. We have only done our duty. “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’” (Luke 17:10). In a small way in a small place for a few years we planted some seeds of faith and hope. Others will water these seeds. And we trust that God will give the growth. We end with the prayer, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38). Your faithful giving has brought this partnership this far; your continued giving to this witness in the former Soviet space will ensure the witness is sustained.
Grace and peace, Eric & Becky Hinderliter
*https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/us/obituary-peter-berger-dead-theologian-sociologist.html